13 December 19
We are falling well off the pace needed to finish the December fundraising drive at all. We are actually getting a nice stream of very small donations, but small donations alone cannot do it.
We need a little boost here.
Marc Ash
Founder, Reader Supported News
Founder, Reader Supported News
If you would prefer to send a check:
Reader Supported News
PO Box 2043
Citrus Hts, CA 95611
Reader Supported News
PO Box 2043
Citrus Hts, CA 95611
12 December 19
Adam Serwer | The 'Russia Hoax' Is a Hoax
Adam Serwer, The Atlantic
Serwer writes: "If you are following mainstream news outlets, you know that in 2016, Donald Trump benefited from a Russian hacking and disinformation campaign designed to help him get elected, even as he sought permission from the Russian government to build a hotel in Moscow."
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Virginia Roberts Giuffre in New York on Tuesday, when nearly two dozen women who have accused Jeffrey Epstein of sexual abuse appeared at a court hearing. (photo: Jefferson Siegel/The New York Times)
Adam Serwer, The Atlantic
Serwer writes: "If you are following mainstream news outlets, you know that in 2016, Donald Trump benefited from a Russian hacking and disinformation campaign designed to help him get elected, even as he sought permission from the Russian government to build a hotel in Moscow."
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Virginia Roberts Giuffre in New York on Tuesday, when nearly two dozen women who have accused Jeffrey Epstein of sexual abuse appeared at a court hearing. (photo: Jefferson Siegel/The New York Times)
Epstein Accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre Says FBI Has Warned Her of 'Credible Death Threat'
Jamie Ross, The Daily Beast
Ross writes: "Virginia Roberts Giuffre - the most high-profile Jeffrey Epstein accuser, who has also made serious allegations against Britain's Prince Andrew - has said the FBI warned her of a 'credible death threat.'"
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Washington Redskins fans watch an NFL football game. (photo: NBC Sports)
Jamie Ross, The Daily Beast
Ross writes: "Virginia Roberts Giuffre - the most high-profile Jeffrey Epstein accuser, who has also made serious allegations against Britain's Prince Andrew - has said the FBI warned her of a 'credible death threat.'"
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Washington Redskins fans watch an NFL football game. (photo: NBC Sports)
Robert Lipsyte | The Six Ways Football Groomed Us for President Trump. Still Going to Watch the Superbowl?
Robert Lipsyte, TomDispatch
Lipsyte writes: "Helping to spread America's primary disease, racism, is Trump 101, but the NFL got there first."
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LGBT flags in front of the White House on June 11, 2017. (photo: Zach Gibson/Getty)
ALSO SEE: Senate Confirms Trump Judicial Nominee Who Cried
When Confronted With Anti-Gay Record
Robert Lipsyte, TomDispatch
Lipsyte writes: "Helping to spread America's primary disease, racism, is Trump 101, but the NFL got there first."
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LGBT flags in front of the White House on June 11, 2017. (photo: Zach Gibson/Getty)
ALSO SEE: Senate Confirms Trump Judicial Nominee Who Cried
When Confronted With Anti-Gay Record
Michelangelo Signorile, NBC News
Signorile writes: "For three years, President Donald Trump has rolled back LGBTQ equality in unprecedented ways. This makes his ongoing and preposterous attempts to portray his White House as a supporter of LGBTQ rights even more infuriating."
Case in point, his campaign's LGBTQ pride merchandise, including rainbow-themed “Make America Great Again” hats and T-shirts. According to the Donald Trump website, the pride hat is currently sold out.
But who is buying this gear? The Trump rainbow apparel is not only monumentally hypocritical and insulting; it’s also part of a long list of attempts to grab media attention that momentarily makes Trump appear as an ally of LGBTQ people — at least to those who don’t read past the headlines.
This is a cynical attempt to court heterosexual voters who might be turned off by blatant bigotry. And, ironically, it’s a testament to the great progress on LGBTQ rights over the past two decades: An administration that bows to anti-LGBTQ extremists in its base nonetheless fears being perceived as harsh, especially heading into an election year.
This was true when Trump sent a tweet supporting LGBTQ pride last June, and when his ambassador to Germany last February announced a supposedly new campaign to fight the criminalization of homosexuality around the world (which turned out to simply be the continuation of an existing Obama-era policy). But these pronouncements, like the selling of Pride merchandise, paper over the fact that Trump has been among the most hostile presidents in history on LGBTQ rights.
As we celebrate LGBT Pride Month and recognize the outstanding contributions LGBT people have made to our great Nation, let us also stand in solidarity with the many LGBT people who live in dozens of countries worldwide that punish, imprison, or even execute individuals....
69.8K people are talking about this
In the past, blatant anti-LGBTQ policies — and a refusal to even acknowledge queer people — were more politically and culturally acceptable. For years, they could even help candidates running for national office. Now, as support for equality has dramatically shifted, a large portion of the electorate is repelled by anti-LGBTQ attitudes in a way similar to how they perceive the overt shunning of other minorities.
And that explains why the superficial embrace of LGBTQ people by Trump isn’t actually targeted to LGBTQ voters. Trump and his campaign advisers know that the vast majority of LGBTQ people, after witnessing Trump ask the Supreme Court to allow discrimination against them in employment, and after seeing Trump move to strip anti-discrimination protections from them under the Affordable Care Act, aren’t going to vote for him. Indeed, according to exit polls only 14 percent of LGBTQ people cast a vote for him in 2016.
The larger groups that Trump’s campaign is worried about include much-coveted straight suburban voters, many of whom support LGBTQ rights and have moved away from Trump and the GOP. The campaign is hoping these voters aren’t paying much attention to the deep rollbacks on civil rights — which often get short shrift given how much chaos emanates from this administration — while Trump makes empty gestures of support for LGBTQ people and other minorities.
Trump’s aides are also often shameless in the claims they make, attempting to gloss over the horrendous damage he’s done.
“President Trump has never considered LGBT Americans second-class citizens and has opposed discrimination of any kind against them,” White House spokesman Judd Deere recently told The New York Times, even as Trump’s executive orders and other actions have been aimed at allowing discrimination in the name of “religious freedom.”
Top presidential adviser Kellyanne Conway even claimed in 2018 that Trump came into office “approving of the gay marriage.” In fact, Trump courted religious conservatives throughout his 2016 campaign, stating emphatically that he was opposed to marriage equality at the federal level and promising to place judges on the Supreme Court who might overturn it. While he has given a variety of interviews on the topic since then — saying he is “great” with Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg’s same-sex marriage, for example — his record can by no means be construed as proactively in favor of same-sex marriage or other rights.
Indeed, the best way to judge Trump’s record is by looking at his biggest supporters. The religious right hasn’t reacted at all to Trump’s attempt to appear LGBTQ-friendly, because anti-LGBTQ leaders know that Trump has no desire to actually further equality. This is all just for show.
I was present at the 2016 GOP convention in Cleveland. Right after Trump’s acceptance speech vowing to protect the “LGBTQ community,” I interviewed Tony Perkins, president of the anti-LGBTQ Family Research Council. He, too, was confident Trump would push his agenda, no matter statements like the one he had just made from the stage.
“[Trump] has said that these issues should be dealt with at the state level and he has not been for the government forcing it on people,” Perkins told me of LGBT rights. And that’s something Trump has certainly followed through on: Dismantling federal protections for LGBTQ people while paying lip service to equality in the abstract.
That’s why LGBTQ activists, as well as those in the media, must be vigilant. The horrendous truth must ring out louder than any rainbow-colored Trump campaign T-shirt.
The Trump administration is determined to target food stamps for cuts. (photo: Getty)
'I Won't Be Able to Have Healthy Food': Millions of Americans to Lose Lifeline as Trump Cuts Food Stamps
Michael Sainato, Guardian UK
Sainato writes: "Fauntleroy is one of about 40 million low-income Americans who receive at least some Snap benefits every year, a program for which the Trump administration is currently rolling out new rules that will reduce these benefits even further, and make millions of Americans ineligible to receive them."
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Britain's opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn poses outside a polling station after voting in the general election in London, Britain, December 12, 2019. (photo: Hannah McKay/Reuters)
Michael Sainato, Guardian UK
Sainato writes: "Fauntleroy is one of about 40 million low-income Americans who receive at least some Snap benefits every year, a program for which the Trump administration is currently rolling out new rules that will reduce these benefits even further, and make millions of Americans ineligible to receive them."
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Britain's opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn poses outside a polling station after voting in the general election in London, Britain, December 12, 2019. (photo: Hannah McKay/Reuters)
UK Voters Choose a New Government to Resolve Brexit Impasse
Danica Kirka, Mike Corder and Jill Lawless, Associated Press
Excerpt: "Britons who have endured more than three years of wrangling over their country's messy divorce from the European Union cast ballots Thursday in an election billed as a way out of the Brexit stalemate in the deeply divided nation."
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Danica Kirka, Mike Corder and Jill Lawless, Associated Press
Excerpt: "Britons who have endured more than three years of wrangling over their country's messy divorce from the European Union cast ballots Thursday in an election billed as a way out of the Brexit stalemate in the deeply divided nation."
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Smokes rises from forest fires in Altamira, Pará state, Brazil, in the Amazon basin, August 27, 2019. (photo: Joao Laet/Getty)
Supertrees: Meet the Amazonian Giant That Helps the Rainforest Make Its Own Rain
Umair Irfan, Vox
Irfan writes: "The Brazil nut tree plays a critical role in the global climate and weather across South America. Deforestation is putting it all at risk."
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Umair Irfan, Vox
Irfan writes: "The Brazil nut tree plays a critical role in the global climate and weather across South America. Deforestation is putting it all at risk."
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